The room was furnished in a dark and restful
fashion; and since the chill of the weather belied the calendar, a
comfortable fire blazed in the hearth. A bay window, over which the
blinds had not been lowered, commanded London.
There were four men smoking about the dinner-table. Harry Feversham was
unchanged, except for a fair moustache, which contrasted with his dark
hair, and the natural consequences of growth. He was now a man of
middle height, long-limbed, and well-knit like an athlete, but his
features had not altered since that night when they had been so closely
scrutinised by Lieutenant Sutch. Of his companions two were
brother-officers on leave in England, like himself, whom he had that
afternoon picked up at his club,--Captain Trench, a small man, growing
bald, with a small, sharp, resourceful face and black eyes of a
remarkable activity, and Lieutenant Willoughby, an officer of quite a
different stamp. A round forehead, a thick snub nose, and a pair of
vacant and protruding eyes gave to him an aspect of invincible
stupidity. He spoke but seldom, and never to the point, but rather to
some point long forgotten which he had since been laboriously revolving
in his mind; and he continually twisted a moustache, of which the ends
curled up toward his eyes with a ridiculous ferocity,--a man whom one
would dismiss from mind as of no consequence upon a first thought, and
take again into one's consideration upon a second.
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